Why We're Failing in Math and Science

This article is complete bullshit.<p>I'm an academic. I do math and science for a living. I'm also an immigrant. I lived most of my life in India. I also have a lot of European friends, and actually just got back from a Europe trip hanging out with a number of European academics. Finally, I've also looked at the statistics on this subject.<p>Every way you look at it, the U.S actually kicks ass in math an science, whether you look at top research or the averages. Take SAT math. Think of a country that has a reputation for excellence in high school math. Eastern Europe immediately comes to mind. Shall we say Romania? Guess what, cynics? U.S scores are on average 30 points higher than Romania's. Or take Nobel prizes. No other country even comes close to the U.S. If we're so bad at science and math, why do we have Silicon Valley and no one else has anything remotely as good?<p>For several years I've been trying to understand where this self-loathing perception comes from. My friend (also an academic) says that academics spread the "sky is falling" perception in order to get more funding dollars from the NSF/NIH/DARPA, and the media picks it up and runs with it because they always love a scare story. That's the best explanation I have so far. Anyone got a better one?

"In China today, Bill Gates is Britney Spears. In American today, Britney Spears is Britney Spears and that is our problem"<p>Thomas Friedman talking about the waning interest in engineering &#38; science in America's youth in his book "The World is Flat"

short summary: America, for its fear and litigious society, is neutering herself.<p>This does not nail it though on why the country is failing at Math &#38; Science. Parental influence is the top correlation between children and success in school. It's not a surprise that 50% of STEM degrees are going to International students (who make up less than 10% of the general US student populous) -- their parents push them towards the most difficult degrees -- Sciences, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.

If you've got an extra 9 minutes, there's an entertaining clip over at ted also about our safety craze that I just watched last night with my parents, who got a kick out of telling me about all the dangerous stuff they had when they were kids, which of course they never let me near until I was quite a bit older.<p><a href="http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/gever_tulley_on_5_dangerous_things_for_kids.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/gever_tulley_on_5_dangero...</a>

My parents limited me to 1 hour per day of computer / video games. I was allowed to watch TV pretty much as long as I wanted to though. Funny enough, I spent most of my time reading programming books and making designs all day, and then furiously coding for that precious hour. (And of course finding all kinds of hacks to get more than an hour in - waking up extra early, jumping from the chair to my bed with a book in hand when a parent walked down the hall, etc)

Article, if taken seriously, might explain something about chemistry. But maths?

I really doubt America is worse off than anywhere else in the world. The difference is that America is generally very self-critical.

The article is very fun to read, despite the sad contents.<p>But it misses one big point: the image of a scientist. When I reply to "what do you do for a living?" and I say "I'm a neuroscientist", people smile condescendingly and pat me on the back. Because I'm not a lawyer, medical doctor or businessman (i.e. in my way to big money) and thus I can only be either stupid or a fool.

Is the US failing at math and science? I don't take a metric like test scores or diplomas at face value. Maybe I could entertain international patents granted, but not without some more detailed analysis.<p>I don't think I've ever seen a proper analysis of the question of whether the US really is all that poor on math and science.<p>I think the huge US military industrial complex may play a big role in confusing the issue. An enormous amount of US scientific prowess is busy serving the pentagon. The casual observer sees the technological output of, say, Japan more readily because it's in consumer goods.